


The Bee's Knees

by antigrav_vector



Series: Things I blame on the CapRBB slack [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Angst, Angst and Smut, Barebacking, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Peggy Carter, Bucky's super soldier dick, Canon Typical Violence, Cap1 AU, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Floral!Steve, I blame CAPRBB slack chat, Implied Torture, Lots of Bucky feels, M/M, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Non-consensual Medical Procedures, Polyamorous Relationships, Polyamory Negotiations, Sex, Shifter!Bucky, Shifter!Peggy, Smut, Steve has a flower crown, Steve's super soldier dick, Threesome, Zola is still a dick, but with plants and bugs, idk - Freeform, sometimes Steve comes and it's pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 14:14:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10923492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector
Summary: When Steve pulled him out of the burning wreckage of the factory in Austria, Bucky thought he was dreaming. When they got back to the camp, he started thinking it might be a nightmare.Steve and Bucky had been a thing for years before either of them met Peggy. But Steve had clearly fallen head over heels for her.This causes a bit of a clash at first.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chiyume](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiyume/gifts).



> Also chiyume's fault. Fic inspired by this art: [LINKY LINKY](http://chiyume.tumblr.com/post/160470736254/ox-eye-daisies-innocence-purity-beauty)!
> 
> Beta read by [Quarra](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quarra). Thank you, love.

His sense of time was completely broken.

Bucky watched in detached horror as Zola and his doctor-assistant freaks prepared yet another dose of whatever they'd been giving him. It made him lose all contact with reality, and contained a drug that left him unable to shift. He hated the feeling of utter helplessness it gave him.

But worse was the pain that went with each injection. First he had to deal with needle pricks in his arms and legs, then agony wracked him from head to toe, feeling like a full-body cramp but far more intense. Not even his first shift -- and those were infamous for being the most painful experience of a shifter's life -- could compare.

Every time they injected a new dose, Bucky couldn't help but worry that it would affect more than just his muscles. That it would somehow stop more than his sense of time or make more than just his muscles feel like they were cramping.

"So, Sergeant Barnes," Zola prompted him as he leaned over the bare table Bucky had been strapped down on, "how do you feel?"

Trying to speak had resulted in him making hoarse choked sounds, the last few times he'd tried.

"Fuck you," he gritted out, pleased that this time Zola had asked before the injection.

Zola tutted at him. "Rudeness will not get you free, my shifter friend," he said. "Cooperation might. Is your separation from your Floral causing you pain?"

"Why should I cooperate when all you do is hurt me?" Bucky demanded, watching the assistants in their white coats approach and ignoring the other question. Once more unto the breach.

Before Zola could launch into yet another variation of his 'Hydra will rule the world, join us now and live' spiel, a grunt entered the room. "Dr. Zola, sir? The Red Skull requests your presence."

Zola nodded to his assistants. "Proceed with the injections. I shall return shortly. We are nearly finished." 

Bucky couldn't help but swallow against the lump forming in his throat on the heels of _that_ particular statement.

As Zola left the room, looking a bit put out about being called away, the assistants began their routine. First his feet, placing the needles carefully in the arch, away from his soles, where it would be more painful. Then, once his feet felt like they'd been dipped in kerosene and lit on fire, his calves. Then his thighs, and onward up the length of his body. The last, most painful injections went into the muscles in the curve between neck and shoulder. The pain from those spread down his back almost all the way to his hips, and up his neck to the base of his skull, where it lingered.

He never even noticed it when the alarms started blaring. No, what got him to force his eyes open just long enough to catch a glimpse of a familiar jawline and blond hair was a familiar voice.

"Bucky! Oh God. Come on, Bucky, open your eyes."

That voice didn't belong here; Bucky let his eyes fall shut. He was hallucinating again. He had before, under the effects of the drug he was being given. This wasn't the first time Steve had shown up, though this time he looked rather different than Bucky would have expected.

"No. No, no, no, you don't get to do this to me. Not now." Warm broad hands came down to rest on his jaw, and the familiar scent of honeysuckle that had always seemed to stick to Steve's skin was suddenly in his nose. The words were drifting to him through the haze that always took hold of him after the injections Zola's team had been giving him. He always felt like his entire being had been filled with dead air and static.

"Steve?" Bucky mumbled, forcing the words out through the haze. Somehow the honeysuckle smelled a lot stronger and more layered than he remembered. And the hands were bigger. Had those injections made his skin more sensitive somehow?

"Bucky!" The hands at his face disappeared and Bucky felt the pressure of the restraints around his arms and legs disappear. "Come on, Buck, we have to get you out of here."

This felt too damned much like a dream.

"Y'r not real," he got out, not bothering to fight to sit up. He'd learned the hard way that the restraints would only be pulled tighter if he tried.

Steve huffed at him. "Sure I'm real. And I'm getting you out of here, if it's the last thing I do."

On the one hand, he knew there was no getting out. Bucky could tell he wouldn't make it; he was tired and in pain and hadn't been offered food for several days, though they had been careful to keep him hydrated.

On the other hand, Steve was a stubborn cuss who didn't take no for an answer, and Bucky definitely didn't want to give Zola the satisfaction.

Bucky groaned when Steve jostled one of his arms and hauled him far enough upright that he was sitting on the table. He wavered where he sat, his sense of balance completely off; he could hear the alarms blaring and the shouts echoing up and down the corridor outside the room better, now. It felt like he'd gotten a radio properly tuned in, and now the signal was suddenly louder and clearer than before.

"Bucky?"

"Nnn, gave me somethin'," he told Steve, who was mysteriously a lot taller and broader in the shoulder than he'd been a few months ago when Bucky had been sent overseas. "What happened't'you?"

Steve made an amused sound. "I joined the Army."

Right. Pull the other leg. "Seriously."

"Seriously." Steve gave him a grin. "Details later. Escape now. Can you stand?"

That was when Bucky finally started to believe that it might be real.

* * *

In the end, he'd made it as far as the road out of the compound on sheer force of will.

A bunch of guys Steve had apparently broken out of the cages on the work floor helped them along. They were doing their best to sabotage or outright destroy anything they could, and the chaos that had created was the perfect camouflage for their limping trudge through the factory and out into the courtyard. 

As they made their way out, they were confronted by Zola and the Red Skull, himself. Steve had put Bucky down, lifting away the arm he'd kept firmly settled across his shoulders and propping Bucky carefully against a wall.

"Ah, Captain America," the Skull greeted him with a smirk, "I had not expected to meet you in person. I see Dr. Erskine managed it, after all."

"You've got no idea." Readying that ridiculous prop shield he'd picked up somewhere -- Bucky _definitely_ wanted to know what the hell that was all about -- Steve had widened his stance like he thought he knew what he was doing and puffed out his chest. Bucky winced, trying to find the energy and strength to haul Steve's ass out of another fight he wasn't likely to win. The oaf might be bigger now, but he had the same ten gallons of attitude in a five gallon bucket.

"Haven't I?" The Red Skull sneered. "No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see, I was his greatest success!"

Steve sneered back. "Is that what you tell yourself to convince yourself that you're right? You turned yourself into a _wasp_ , Skull."

"You are deluded, Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality, you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind." Red Skull reached under his chin and pulled at the skin. With a disgusting tearing sound, it came free, revealing that it was a mask. "Unlike you, I embrace it proudly. Without fear!"

Steve stared, stunned surprise keeping him silent for a long moment as he took in the sight before him.

Bucky had heard that the guy was insane and that his moniker was pretty literal, but that hadn't prepared him for this. The bright red skin that had been hidden under the mask looked like someone had dyed a slice of fine leather blood red and stretched it over a human skull. The guy's cheekbones protruded grotesquely and his nose looked like it had broken off. It was pretty telling that Zola was silent, Bucky thought. Zola either hadn't known about this, or wasn't used to seeing it.

"Come, Dr. Zola," Red Skull said after the silence had dragged out for a few seconds longer. "We must leave."

"You think I'm just going to let you go so easily?" Steve shifted his weight like he was going to throw himself at them bodily. Bucky's hands clenched with the need to grab at Steve's belt and haul backward, for all that he knew he was too weak to have a chance of succeeding right now.

"You will, if you wish to survive," Red Skull said, his tone almost bored. "This factory will self destruct in under five minutes."

Steve swore and made a decision. "I hate it when the bad guys are right," he muttered, half under his breath, and grabbed Bucky around the waist, "let's go. He wasn't bluffing."

Bucky nodded, well past protesting. "You don't have one of those masks on, do you?"

Steve huffed in what wasn't quite a laugh and tucked Bucky against his side more comfortably. "Nah."

* * *

Three days later, they finally made it back to friendly territory. Along the way, the men Steve had broken out alongside Bucky had more than proven their worth. Steve had assessed the men gathered outside the compound with a glance, and immediately split them up into squads, taking one for himself.

That was how Bucky had gotten to know Monty, Gabe, Dumdum, Morita, and Dernier. The lot of them, except for Morita, the lone Floral, were shifters, and Bucky was not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, they knew what had happened to him and why he was edgy, and how to handle him. But on the other, they were all strangers and Bucky was mighty jumpy.

Stranger still, Bucky found out as they walked that Steve had apparently hand picked them sometime between his arrival at the factory in Azzano and their escape. Morita, who smelled faintly of chrysanthemum and lily, kept his distance carefully until he saw how that was only setting Bucky more on edge than his acting normal would have. After that, he'd relaxed, and the slight hint of flowers had strengthened a little. That had been oddly soothing, for reasons Bucky couldn't put his finger on. He didn't like that Steve was apparently keeping a tight enough rein on his own scents that Bucky could barely smell him at all.

For a lot of the trek -- he'd quickly lost track of how far they'd walked -- Bucky had stuck to Steve like a burr and tried to pry the story of what the hell had happened out of his best friend. Steve was about three times the size he had been, and despite being fundamentally the same person, he was totally different on a physical level.

For one thing, the way he smelled now was driving Bucky crazy, even in his exhausted state and despite the way Steve was keeping a lid on his floral notes, and he wasn't sure what that would mean for them later. And then there was the way Steve was being very held back, physically, which was worrying Bucky. Before, Steve had always been very tactile, and enjoyed any form of touch Bucky had been willing or able to give him. But now...

Bucky swallowed. It was like Steve had found someone else in the short time they'd been apart.

And he wouldn't say a word about what the hell had blown him up like a helium balloon, either.

By the time they'd finally gotten back to Steve's camp -- guided only by a map Steve had looked at before he'd gone AWOL to go after them, no less, and hadn't taken with him -- Bucky was pretty thoroughly frustrated and tied in emotional knots.

He supposed it took the place of the physical ones Zola had been giving him.

That would have been bad enough, really. But when they entered the camp they were met by a lovely brunette shifter who had looked at his Steve like she wanted to eat him up with a spoon. And Steve had looked right back.

"You're late." She told him flatly, the stress in her tone counteracted by the relief in the corners of her eyes and set of her shoulders.

"Couldn't call my ride." Steve replied with a rueful grin and offered her a small black rectangle that had an obvious bullet hole in it. "Some of these men need medical attention."

She nodded, her flawlessly coiffed curls barely moving, and turned smartly toward the centre of the camp. "Take care of your men," she replied, her posture softening the slightest bit as her eyes swept over them. 

In that moment, Bucky felt old, worn ragged and thin, and somehow wanting.

Seemed Steve _had_ moved on.

Probably at about the same time he'd done whatever that crazy stunt was that made him ... big. He was the same stubborn idiot underneath. Still the same kind soul. But somehow he'd gotten more determined, and perhaps a little calmer. Bucky could see the appeal, for all that he missed _his_ Steve.

The bizarre thing about it was that this was also his Steve. Just... healthier.

Bucky really wanted to know just how that had happened.

"Sergeant Barnes?" A medic was peering at him looking like he wasn't sure whether Bucky was woolgathering or shellshocked.

Shaking his head to clear it, Bucky met the man's eyes properly. "Yes?"

"Come with me, please." The man said with a nod, apparently mostly reassured that Bucky wasn't crazy. "Everyone's getting checked over. Doctor's orders."

With a huff and an attempt at a smile, Bucky gave in. "Yeah, sure. Alright. Just make sure that oaf of a Captain gets checked out, too."

"We will, sir," the medic promised. The man's name tag read Wilson. "But you lot are a slightly higher priority, just now, after marching home with no damned gear but what you stole from the Krauts."

* * *

By the time he was released from the medic's tender care with a disgustingly clean bill of health what felt like hours later, all Bucky wanted was a good meal and about 24 solid hours of sleep. He hadn't said a word about the injections Zola had been giving him, and that had proven to be the right decision, it seemed. Maybe, despite the excruciating pain that they had wracked him with, they had been ultimately harmless, and simply meant to torture information out of him. Neither Zola nor his cronies had said a word about what exactly those injections had been meant to accomplish, if anything.

He wasn't destined to get the sleep he wanted, though.

The moment he stepped out of the medics' large tent and into the open, the shifter that Steve had been eyeing so avidly earlier stepped into his path. Bucky watched her warily. "Can I help you?" He asked, leaving out her title and name, since he didn't know either and she wore no name tags.

His borderline rudeness got him a raised eyebrow and a slight quirk of her lips.

Bucky had to admit, she was a stunner. And not easily discomfited. Both would be good qualities in whoever Steve chose to pursue.

After a slightly strained pause, she gave him a once-over and offered a hand. "Agent Carter."

Taking her hand briefly, still wary, Bucky nodded. "Pleasure. But that doesn't answer the question."

"Captain Rogers is answering to the Colonel about his unauthorised mission," Agent Carter told him, apropos of nothing. "Come walk with me."

"What for?" Bucky demanded, not ready to just simply fall in beside her.

The quirk of her lips turned into a smirk that hinted at dimples. "We have a few things to talk about that require a little more privacy than the front yard of the medic's tent offers."

That was not the response he'd expected, and some of his wariness lifted, replaced with curiousity. "Alright," he conceded, hearing the slightly grudging acceptance in his own voice, "where to?"

Without a word, Agent Carter stepped up to him, calmly inserting herself into his personal space with no regard for decorum, and linked her arm with his. "Just walk with me and keep your voice low."

She led him away from the medics' tent and through the bustling center of the camp, and then along the outer perimeter, without a word. Bucky, willing to let things ride for the time being, didn't break the building silence. It was oddly comfortable, despite the lingering tension and wariness that hung between them.

"He never told me he had anyone," she said once she was sure they were reasonably well out of earshot of anyone. "Or I might not have let him get as far as he did."

"What?" Bucky stared at her for a beat, startled, then shifted to stare out over the wide open field to the south of the camp. He wasn't sure how to feel about that little revelation, but he could definitely respect the strength it took to tell your competition something like that.

"I've seen the way you look at him. It's like he's the sun." Agent Carter smiled a little sadly. "And I won't apologise for the way I feel. Someone who shines so brightly will attract admirers. Such is the way of things."

"No one ever saw it before." Bucky told her. "I knew him when he was still a shrimp. Made him mine long before anyone else could be bothered to see that he was worth the trouble he got into."

"Then they were fools. He was just as amazing before he put on all that muscle."

Bucky turned to face her fully. "You know what happened to him, don't you."

It wasn't a question, but she answered anyway. "I do. But it's all top secret. I can't talk about it. Neither can he."

Typical.

Trust Steve to get himself mixed up in something so stupidly dangerous and experimental that it was bloody well classified. Hell. Steve himself was probably classified, knowing the Army and its love for red tape.

"So now what?" Bucky prompted her after a few seconds passed without further comment.

"Now," Agent Carter told him, "I suppose I'll have to let him go."

Bucky could hear the hollow loss in her voice. That was something far more than a damned crush or the attraction she'd been making it sound like. Bucky made a snap decision. She was gorgeous, and smart. It wouldn't be a hardship to be around her. Raising an eyebrow at her, he quipped. "You don't strike me as someone who'd give up that easily."

_That_ got her attention.

"What, exactly, are you trying to imply, Barnes?" She asked, looking angry. "I may want him, but I'm not about to--"

"Not what I meant," Bucky cut her off.

They stared at each other for a long moment. "Are you saying what I think you are?"

"Maybe." He told her cheekily. "Maybe not."

"Lord help me," she growled. "You'd best not be taking the piss or I might have to find a way to make you pay."

If she took him up on it, Bucky reflected, he would have to take some time to think through the consequences of this decision. While it wasn't unheard of for shifters to pair off, or triads to form, both relationship types were rare, and sometimes seen as immoral. First impressions aside, he liked Carter, and thought she might approve of him, too. He was more than a little bit intrigued by the idea of watching her wreck Steve. But it was one thing to consider that kind of thing in the abstract and another thing entirely to actually put it into practice.

And he needed to figure out where he stood with Steve.

Suddenly tired, he bit back a sigh.

Agent Carter, apparently perceptive in addition to her other qualities, gave him a speculative look. "You need to get some rest," she told him tartly, "and I should be getting back to that debriefing. Come on."

They made their way back through the camp in silence, and Carter stuck around until they reached his freshly-assigned quarters.

"Do me a favor," Bucky asked her, "and send that oaf over here once they're done prying the story out of him."

Agent Carter made an amused sound. "That might be a while. Don't forget to eat dinner."

* * *

Bucky had no idea how much time had passed when Steve unceremoniously stumbled into the room and more or less sprawled out on the narrow bed next to Bucky, one arm and leg flung over him. Startled out of a half-doze, Bucky jumped.

"Steve?"

"'M tired."

Bucky relaxed. This was familiar. Steve had done this often before Bucky had gone overseas to join the War. He looked down at blond hair and carefully ran his fingers through it. "Steve," he asked, fighting not to let too much emotion cloud his voice, "you gonna explain to me what the hell that was with the dame who met you at the camp gates?"

Steve pinked a bit. "Buck," he tried to protest, "I don't-- I wouldn't! Til the end of the line, remember?"

"Come on, punk," Bucky rejoined, but he relaxed. He hadn't lost this. Well, not yet. "We both know it's not nothing. She ambushed me the moment the medics let me go."

"The medics? What'd they have to say?"

It was an obvious diversion tactic, but Bucky let it pass. "Nothing. I'm fine. Like I keep tellin' you. Gonna answer the question?"

Steve groaned and pushed his face into the curve between Bucky's neck and shoulder, the arm he had around Bucky's waist tightening. "I'm not letting you go. Not now that I have you back."

The rest of the tension in him flowed out, hearing those words. Steve had always been very blunt about what he wanted. "Still doesn't answer the question."

"What do you _want me to say_?"

Running his hands through Steve's hair again, Bucky summarised his discussion with Agent Carter. "We talked it over a bit, Steve. She's head over heels, and won't admit it. But I ain't about to give you up." He shrugged with the shoulder Steve wasn't pinning down. "Suggested maybe we should think about a triad. Maybe it'll work out, maybe it won't, but... well."

Steve drew a shuddering breath. "You are such a soft touch. But, Bucky, I... what if she doesn't?"

"Doesn't what?"

"Doesn't want to? Join us?" Steve's voice stayed carefully level, but Bucky could hear the tiny wobble in it.

"That's her loss, then." Bucky told him. "I dunno how I'd react if she actually said yes to the idea. But you are everything to me and I don't want you pining away over might-have-beens."

Steve's stomach growled loudly, breaking the moment, and Bucky laughed at him. "Don't tell me you forgot to eat lunch."

"Didn't have time." Steve sounded a little shamefaced.

Prodding at Steve's side, Bucky decided it was time for a change of scenery. "Let me up, punk. You need to eat, and I probably should too."


	2. Chapter 2

In the end it took them nearly two weeks to find an opportune moment to actually try out their new arrangement. After the first three days, all three of which had featured increasingly heated dreams about Steve and his new love interest, Bucky was more or less convinced that this would work. At least in the short term. Long term... well, who knew. There was a war on, after all, and there were no guarantees that they would all make it out the other side.

The biggest obstacle, really, was their location. All three of them were against trying to do anything inside the confines of the camp, where rumours were the currency-du-jour and juicy gossip spread like wildfire.

Steve was preoccupied with the plans he and Colonel Phillips were making to track down the other Hydra installations on the map Steve had seen in Azzano. Agent Carter was, too, in large part. Bucky was left at loose ends for much of that time, and chose to make use of it by resting while he could. He had no doubts that Steve was going to include him in the strike team that rumour had it was being put together.

The rest of the squad Steve had picked out in Azzano were also supposedly going with them.

But then, some ten days after their return, Steve had tracked Bucky down in the mess hall and caught his eyes. He hadn't needed to say a word -- Bucky knew that look. Something big was about to happen, and Steve was going to be part of the action. Agent Carter hadn't been seen around the camp for several days now, and no one knew where she had gone or why.

Bucky's instincts said that the two things were connected somehow.

Once Steve had led him away from the mess hall and into the cramped headquarters building near the center of the camp, he started talking quietly. "We're being sent out to get Agent Carter back here. She's out on assignment, but the contact that was supposed to pick her up at the rendezvous point can't make it."

"Just the two of us?"

"Yeah." Steve grinned. "It'll be fun."

Bucky wanted to groan. Steve wouldn't know subtle if it bit him in the ass, and odds were good that Agent Carter had been on an information gathering mission. Then, the next thought struck him and he wanted to groan for a different reason entirely; they would be off-base and alone together. Just the three of them. 

It would be the perfect opportunity to experiment.

Bucky licked at his lip. "When do we leave?"

"Two hours. Come on."

The preparations and their trip out to the small town on the Italian-Austrian border felt like it took forever, and no time at all. Every moment he had to wait, Bucky fidgeted. Anytime he was doing, well, anything, his focus was shot to hell and he couldn't seem to make any kind of quick progress.

Eventually, once their ride had dropped them off on an ill-maintained road outside of Tarvisio, Steve broke his silence on the topic. "You feeling alright, Buck? You're bein' mighty twitchy, today."

"Like you're not counting down the minutes," Bucky grumbled. "Keep walking or we'll be late."

"A few minutes won't make a difference," Steve pointed out, correctly, and Bucky hated that he couldn't contradict that.

They would be overnighting in the town with Agent Carter, before moving on, and their contact had arranged a place for her to stay. The cover had originally been that she would be meeting her husband, who had been travelling abroad in the U.S. The downside was that the cover -- which would have worked well for the contact who couldn't make the rendezvous because he would have been alone -- wasn't _strictly_ appropriate, now that the two of them would be making their appearance instead.

* * *

Luckily for Bucky's nerves, Steve didn't insist on exploring the little town while they waited. He had that much sense. A pair of newcomers in a small place always attracted attention, without fail. It was risky enough that they were even speaking to the owner of the tiny bar, whose spare room they and Peggy would be renting for the night.

The bar's owner was sympathetic to the Allies' cause, but this close to the front lines, there were bound to be a lot of German sympathisers around, as well.

They waited impatiently in the bar's single taproom, on the ground floor, playing cards but not bothering to keep score.

By the time the bar's door opened and Agent Carter stepped through, looking like she'd had no trouble at all getting here, Bucky had to grit his teeth to keep himself in his seat. He wanted to jump up and get her the hell out of the taproom, albeit mostly so that he could get himself and Steve out of sight. Sitting around out in the open, doing nothing, and not knowing who might be reporting their presence to whom was making all of his nerves feel like someone had been scuffing them with sandpaper.

Eventually, after a respectable amount of time, Carter appeared at their table and leaned in to give Steve a peck of a kiss high on one cheekbone. "I'm sorry I stayed away so long, darling," she told him in lightly accented Italian. "I had a terrible time finding this place."

Rather than reply verbally, Steve just nodded, a bit wide-eyed.

"Come," she suggested, "let's get some rest."

"I'm sharing my room with my friend," Steve told her quietly as he stood, pitching his voice so that it wouldn't carry far. "Are you sure?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't reply further.

Bucky gathered up the cards and stood, tucking the deck in his pocket. "I don't think I need to fear for my honor with you in the room," he replied. "Go on and get reacquainted. I'll be up in an hour or so."

With an appreciative nod, Agent Carter caught his eyes. "Don't worry," she told him, "we won't be a bother."

Swallowing back the words he wanted to say, Bucky made his way out of the bar and into the late afternoon sun. He'd find a quiet place somewhere nearby and try not to think about what the two of them might get up to. A part of him hoped they'd hold back until he got there, but he knew better than to count on it.

Bucky picked out a spot where he could lean against the drystone wall belonging to the outermost building of the town, a couple hundred metres from the bar, and settled himself comfortably.

He knew better than to close his eyes, though. If he did, he would inevitably start daydreaming about Steve and Agent Carter, and probably get himself hard in public. It would be embarrassing enough to walk back to the bar like that -- not to mention uncomfortable as hell -- and he sure wasn't about to try to take care of something like that out in the open.

That was just asking for trouble.

Almost before he knew it, his time sense warned him that he should get back to his feet. The hour he'd promised them had just about evaporated. Standing and stretching the kinks out of his muscles, Bucky made his way back to the bar. It felt like there were eyes on him the whole way there, but there were only two people out and about, both minding their own business and he saw no one at the windows of the houses nearby.

No matter how many times he told himself he was imagining the watchers, his instincts only calmed once he was indoors.

Bucky didn't linger in the taproom, instead making straight for the narrow stairs on the far side of the bar, and climbing them. Steve had been the one to claim the key from the bar owner, so Bucky knocked and waited. The room was quiet for a beat, and then bare footsteps sounded on the wooden floorboards.

The door opened a crack, and then opened wide as Steve pulled him through it. Bucky had just enough time to catch a glimpse of Agent Carter sitting on the single double bed before the door was quickly shut again -- and locked, this time -- and then Steve's arms went around him. That immediately reminded Bucky of all the things he had studiously _not_ been thinking about, and he whined as Steve started kissing the breath out of him.

When they eventually broke apart, their breaths coming a bit faster, Agent Carter spoke up. "Well. I have to say that far surpasses any of my attempts to imagine it." She stood and took the few steps over to them. 

"Peggy," Steve asked, his voice a deeper rumble than usual, "we never had a chance to talk about it. Do you... do you want..."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Steve, and take a breath," he suggested, and turned to Agent Carter. "I don't think we were ever properly introduced. My friends call me Bucky."

Agent Carter smirked at him. "Peggy," she offered in response. "I am going to assume that Steve's attempted sentence was going to end in 'want to have a tumble'."

Bucky laughed. "Probably not. Steve's got no idea how to talk to a pretty dame."

"And you do?" Peggy eyed him skeptically. "I can't say you've made much of an impression on me so far."

Now that was a challenge, if he'd ever heard one. "What would it take, then?" He asked.

"Oh, no, I don't think so," she stopped him. "First things first. Steve, I want to see you bloom for me."

Bucky blinked, surprised, then grinned broadly, watching the bright red flush climb up Steve's neck. "Oh, this I've got to see. He hasn't shown them to me since he got bigger."

"Jerk." Steve shoved at his shoulder, and took a steadying breath.

Bucky snickered at him. "Might have to be careful not to make him combust, Peggy."

He would have continued ribbing Steve, but that train of thought jumped its tracks and crashed when Steve did as Peggy demanded. There were a lot more flowers now than the little sprigs of honeysuckle and daisies he remembered. The sparse blossoms Steve'd had the last time Bucky had seen him, stateside, were... well, not gone but utterly transformed. Much like Steve himself. The flowers looked almost like they wanted to set down roots and grow until they reached the heavens, they were so thick and lush. There were more kinds of flowers mixed in, now, too, that Bucky didn't recognise and they smelled amazing.

They made the air around Steve heavy and sweet with their scent, and it was driving Bucky mad.

Foregoing any further attempts at speech, he threw one arm around Steve's waist and hauled him back in for another kiss, with the smell of honeysuckle and daisies driving him to push for more and deeper.

Steve groaned, leaning into the kiss, and giving back as good as he was getting. His hands went to Bucky's hips, where they gripped down hard, and he pulled Bucky in as close as he could manage. Bucky felt like Steve was trying to pour heat down into him, and damned if it wasn't working.

He was surprised when another warm body bracketed him from behind, and a pair of soft breasts pressed against his shoulder blades. The feeling made him startle and added an uncomfortable bite to the kiss when his teeth caught on Steve's lips unintentionally, but Steve didn't let him pull away. 

Peggy leaned against him, then, pressing him more firmly into Steve, and biting at the muscle at the nape of Bucky's neck. Bucky couldn't help the groan that rose up out of the pit of his stomach to catch in his throat at the feeling.

He'd never been with another shifter, but Peggy was making a solid case in favor of this experiment, he decided. Before he could fully work his way through the knowledge that he wanted this -- that he was going to go through with this -- Peggy refocused his attention on the physical.

"There are supplies in the dresser beside the bed," she murmured in his ear as she left a trail of nips up the side of his neck, careful not to bruise the delicate skin. Steve made a sound like he'd been suckerpunched, and pulled back. "Not that I intend to risk any kind of shifted sex."

The mere thought left Bucky feeling like there was no air in the room. Shifted sex was one of the few ways florals could spawn. It was only when the pollen of their blossoms got spread around just right that they succeeded. Bucky would have happily tried, if either of them were in any position to deal with younglings underfoot. The idea of having a few more of Steve was a bit breathtaking. But now was distinctly not the time, and he would have a difficult time doing the pollination.

His shifted form, a swarm of ladybugs, was far better at keeping Steve healthy -- or had been, anyway, before Steve got big and apparently indestructible -- than at spreading that yellow dust around.

He used the leverage he had to turn Steve until his back was to the edge of the bed. "Come to think of it, Peggy," he asked idly as he walked Steve backwards, "what kind of shifter are you?"

Her smirk was audible. "If you ever need some honey, we can talk."

Bucky went hot all over and he bit his lip as he shoved Steve down onto the mattress. A honeybee shifter, and a dame? God but Steve knew how to pick 'em. This would be one complicated relationship, even if it didn't last. Female bee shifters were known to be very demanding where it came to sex, based on the rumours, and Steve himself had tended to be demanding, too, wanting sex every second day, if not more often. Who knew what he would be like now that he wasn't getting sick every couple of weeks or fighting his asthma when he got riled up properly. Bucky had the distinct feeling that they were going to wear him down within a month.

Steve allowed himself to be moved, clearly eager enough not to protest at all, for all that he had never been with a female shifter before this. "Peggy?" He asked, sounding breathless.

"What do you want, Steve?" She stepped over to the bed and ran a hand through Steve's hair. "I can offer suggestions, if you don't know."

"Don't care," he replied. "I just want to feel you both."

Bucky huffed at him. "That's not how this works." He caught Peggy's eyes and she nodded at him. When he went on after a beat, he added, "We want you to feel good, which means you tell us how best to do that. Do you want Peggy wrapped around you? Taking you deep? You could, you know. Long's she doesn't shift, you're both safe enough."

In his peripheral vision, Bucky could see the shiver that ran through Peggy at the thought. "You paint a nice picture, Bucky," she purred. "Steve?"

Rather than answer verbally, Steve started fumbling with the fastenings of his clothes.

Peggy stopped him with her hands on his. "I need an answer, Steve."

"Yes." Steve swallowed convulsively, his adam's apple bobbing, and the smell of flowers got stronger, "Please. Peggy, I--"

That was more than enough to get Peggy moving; she reached out to take hold of the fly of Steve's pants and pull it open wide enough that his hard dick seemed to pop out like an obscene jack-in-the-box.

Bucky felt his fists clench, and had to work harder than he'd expected to keep his hands off himself. The urge to undo his own pants and touch himself was strong. Steve was already leaving yellow streaks on his clothes in his eagerness, and damned if that wasn't adding to the urgency Bucky felt.

Peggy took a long lingering look at Steve, inhaling the honey-sweet smell in the room like she was savouring a fine wine, and stripped out of the skirt and stockings she wore.

Bucky groaned as the tangy scent of feminine arousal hit him. It was more enticing than he'd thought it could be, for all that they were both shifters. "God, Peggy," he got out, "I want to taste you."

She shivered, apparently liking the idea. "Let me ride him, and then taste both of us," she suggested, intent on her goal despite the distraction he'd offered.

Steve's hips twitched, and his hands clenched around the thin blankets on the bed. "Getting to have both of you together," he mock-grumbled, laughing weakly, "is going to kill me."

"We shall see about that, Captain," Peggy told him, as she draped her clothing over the lone spindly chair in the room then stalked back to the bed. She grabbed at the waistband of Steve's pants, and tugged at them until he lifted his hips long enough for her to pull them down to his knees. "Something tells me you will be just fine."

Steve made a high choked sound in the back of his throat when she put her hands on his cock and steadied him, sheathing him in one smooth, slow movement, utterly without hesitation.

"You feel good, Steve," she purred at him, and Bucky's self-restraint broke with an almost audible snap.

He reached down and hastily tugged open the button and zipper keeping his dick confined in his pants and stumbled over to the chair. Bucky just knew he wouldn't be able to keep his knees from buckling if he tried to do this standing. He was already feeling like they might give out and send him tumbling to the floor.

Settling himself in the chair, Bucky couldn't help the hitching whine that rose in his throat, when he realised that the smell of Peggy's arousal still clung to her skirt. It seemed to rise up around him like mist and drive him wild. It didn't help that this was the first time Steve had ever been with a female shifter -- and Bucky wasn't being tossed aside in her favor.

Firmly seated and enjoying herself, where she was deflowering Steve on the narrow bed, Peggy smirked at him over her shoulder. "Not to worry, Bucky," she said airily, "we'll take care of you, too."

Bucky huffed at her, knowing the hoarseness in his voice was likely clearly audible. "Better be quick, then, or I'll have to take care of myself."

Steve's eyes met his, then, wide and a little wild, and Bucky bit his lip at the sight of his Steve so wrecked. "Go on, then, Peggy," he prompted her, pitching his voice deliberately low, "make him come and let me taste you both."

When she started moving, slowly and deliberately, Steve's hands clenched harder around the sheets, and Bucky swore he heard a few stitches pop. "Peg-- Peggy," he gritted out between clenched teeth, "I'm not gonna last."

She chuckled at him, pleasure and satisfaction in her voice, and ran her hands down from Steve's jaw to his waist, using the leverage it gave her to move faster. "If you come before I do," she said, breathless and amused, "you're making it up to me."

Bucky could see Steve inching closer to the precipice of sensation and doing his best to hold back. It wasn't working. "Steve," he told his idiot lover, "use your hands."

Beyond words, Steve nodded and forced his hands open. Bringing them up to touch Peggy's thighs where they flexed and looking like he wanted to explore her breasts and neck, Steve hesitantly experimented with different patches of skin and pressures.

Peggy took pity on him after a few seconds and grabbed one of his hands, pulling it away from her lower back and putting it between her legs. "Here," she told him, "touch me here."

It didn't take long after that for Steve to work out the right way to hold his hand so that she could rub off on it. A few thrusts later, Peggy was throwing her head back and coming with a loud moan that seemed to echo through the room. Steve followed her over the edge, almost silently as was his wont.

A cloud of pollen appeared around his head, centered around his flowers, and Bucky almost choked, startled by the intensity of it. The smell only intensified when Peggy lifted herself slowly off his cock, her movements sensuous and teasingly slow. She and Steve were liberally streaked yellow with more pollen and nectar where they had been joined and it had mixed with Peggy's own human juices.

"Your turn, Bucky." She informed him. "Clean us up."

Bucky wasn't sure where he found the strength to get back to his feet, but two long steps later he was kneeling beside the bed and pulling Peggy toward him. "Hold still, then."

Eager and wanting, he dove in without another thought for the care he would have to take in washing his face later. Burying his nose in the hair around her opening, Bucky licked up every trace he could reach from the outside. It didn't take long for him to push for more, not satisfied with what he'd gotten, licking his way deeper until he was thrusting his tongue into her, making her squirm and cry out. Before he decided he was finished, she was coming again with a cry of his name, spasming around him and all but filling his mouth with her juices.

When Bucky pulled away, breathing hard and very pleased with himself, Peggy fell back limply onto the bed and gasped for air. "Well," she got out in between breaths that made her breasts heave distractingly, "that performance certainly didn't disappoint. Captain, you are a lucky man."

Bucky laughed at her, carefully ignoring the way that sent shudders up and down his spine when it rubbed his leaking cock against the sheets. "Always was."

He looked Steve up and down once, noting that his lover was hard again already, and shrugged mentally. "Don't choke me," he said and took Steve's cock in his mouth without preamble.

The taste of come and pollen exploded over his tongue in a mix of sweet and salty notes that made him groan and Steve breath his name.

Bucky had one goal in that moment; he wanted Steve to come again in his mouth, wanted it so badly he wondered if just thinking about it would make him come, himself.

He ducked his head, shifting his weight to make the position more comfortable, and swallowed Steve down as far as he could manage. It wasn't as far as it used to be; Steve had gotten bigger. All over. His dick had always been a lovely size, before, just the right girth for Bucky to swallow it down and feel it press against his throat from the inside. Now he wasn't sure he could take it properly. 

Steve was shifting restlessly on the bed, wanting to move but not daring to, and Bucky reveled in that.

Peggy chose that moment to lean her weight against Bucky's shoulder. "Let up a second," she told him. "Let him go for a moment and change positions."

Reluctantly, Bucky did as she bid. "Gonna have to give me some more detail before I agree to that," he quipped, and enjoyed the way Steve bit at his lip, hearing the hoarse rasp of Bucky's voice.

"Give him something to put in his mouth," Peggy said, giving them both an arch look. "Kneel over his head and then keep doing what you were doing. Let him enjoy your cock, too."

That... that sounded amazing. Why hadn't he thought of it?

Steve looked like he was stunned speechless for a moment, and then his usual impatience came right back to the fore, just as it always had. But this time it was different in amazing new ways. He reached for Bucky and _lifted him up off the bed_ to put him where he needed to be.

The move made Bucky jump and tense, but then his cock was in Steve's mouth and the slick wet heat was driving him to distraction.

Laughing at him, Peggy shoved at his shoulder until he bent to take Steve's cock back in his mouth.

Things blurred into heat and tongue and pressure and movement, after that. Bucky lost all track of time, focused only on making Steve come. It felt like it took a year, but then he was rewarded with a mouthful of come so sweet he might have mistaken it for honey if he hadn't known better.

The taste of the nectar and pollen coating his mouth and the feeling of Steve's hands pulling him closer, forcing him deeper until Steve could swallow around him proved too much.

Pulling off Steve's cock to take a deep hitching breath, Bucky came hard, biting down on the muscle of Steve's leg to keep from screaming his completion for the whole bar to hear.

Steve made a pained sound, but came more, and Bucky pulled away gingerly, oversensitive now that the urgency was subsiding.

Peggy watched Bucky let himself fall bonelessly onto the bed next to Steve and leaned in to lick up the new spurt of yellow, herself.

"Yes," she said, looking entirely too pleased with herself, "I believe we should consider doing this again sometime."


	3. Chapter 3

"Zhelaniye. Rzhavyy. Semnadtsat'. Rassvet. Pech'. Devyat'. Dobroserdechnyy. Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu. Odin. Grozovoy vagon."

The Asset's eyes opened.

"Soldat?"

"Ya gotov otvechat."

He was being sent after his most dangerous target yet. A Floral impersonating Captain America. The Asset wasn't sure why that sent shivers of indecision up and down his spine. Finally, he was being sent after quarry worthy of his skills. He might not remember his previous missions, but the proof of just how easily he'd accomplished them was there to see in his lack of mission-related scars.

The asset's first glimpse of his target was enough to send another shiver of indecision through him.

He ... he knew this man.

Not sure how that was possible, the Asset hesitated. He had the shot lined up, but some part of him simply _refused_ to take it.

That reluctance was baffling. Never before had he been given an assignment he couldn't complete. He could complete this one, if he pulled the trigger.

So why was he holding back?

As though that question had been a trigger, everything started going wrong, then. His target happened to glance out his window in just the wrong direction at just the wrong moment, and caught sight of him.

Rather than doing the sensible thing, and running away from the sniper with the gun pointed at him, the man chose to run towards him instead.

The asset fired off a warning shot, hoping to deter the man, and failed. Grabbing his gear and turning to run -- he was strictly forbidden from being seen -- the Asset hurdled the low railing around the roof he'd been loitering on, staking out his target's apartment.

Before he could put more than a city block between himself and his pursuit, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, his target _caught up to him_.

That had never happened before. Not ever. The Asset was as sure of that as anything.

He stared down the man for a long moment that felt like it stretched into infinity. Something deep in his subconscious was screaming at him, but he wasn't sure what it wanted or what to do about it.

"Bucky?"

His target called him by a name he didn't recognise. The Asset realised belatedly that he'd lost his facemask during his attempt to escape, and since he had removed his goggles to line up the shot, his face was visible. He would be punished for this later, no doubt. After the silence had drawn out, his target getting more and more upset with each passing moment, the Asset gave in and replied. "Who the hell is Bucky?"

The shield his target carried was familiar, and not just because he'd seen it in the briefing files. He knew that weapon. Knew it as well as he knew his own rifles.

So too was the devastated expression on his target's face one he knew.

"Till the end of the line," his target whispered, seemingly in an attempt to steady himself. His target looked shaken -- like he'd seen a ghost -- and something about that felt oddly appropriate. Like he agreed, for all that had no memory of ever meeting this man. 

Stranger still, the words resounded through the Asset.

It was a sensation that felt like thunder, making him want to cover his ears, but he knew only he could hear it.

"Come on, Bucky." His target tried again, his shield on his back now. "I know you know me."

The Asset watched him warily. He hadn't seen his target stow the shield, and that meant he was distracted, possibly badly enough to cause him to make a fatal error.

"Bucky," his target repeated, looking like he felt frustrated and helpless.

"That isn't my name," the Asset replied, his tone harsh.

"It is." His target insisted. "Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, and you _know me._ "

Against his will, the Asset had to admit there was a chance it was true. "My orders are to kill you."

His target looked like he wanted to faint. The Asset had to viciously bite back the urge to make his target sit down and _breathe_.

A flash of what could only be a memory flickered briefly to life like an arc of lightning splitting the sky. The Asset saw himself -- well, he assumed it was himself; the memory was in the first person -- having enthusiastic athletic intercourse with the man who was now his target.

The memory was old, though, faded and well-worn. It felt like his tac gloves did once he got them properly broken in. Comfortable, warm, and soft. He hadn't been having sex with this man for a mission. The Asset knew there would be no emotions involved in such an encounter, even if he remembered none such. The tenor of that memory was about as far from the detachment the Asset felt on a mission as it was possible to get.

He'd _wanted_.

Caution won out, though. "Sit down before you fall off the roof," he commanded gruffly.

His target stared at him, confusion and hope warring in his eyes, but obeyed.

 _For once_ , a sarcastic voice commented, and the Asset fought not to give away his surprise as he realised that those had been his thoughts.

The silence between them dragged out a bit longer, before his target broke it again. "You said your mission is to kill me," he said slowly, watching the Asset, weighing him, "so why haven't you? You could have taken that shot and disappeared."

Unsure, the Asset didn't reply.

"You know me." His target repeated again, as though speaking the words might make the Asset remember. "You were my best friend, growing up. And my right hand man in the War."

That comment, strangely, made another flicker of a memory surface.

The Asset couldn't pin down quite when or where it was, but it felt old. Older than the first. The target was... tiny.

_Punk doesn't know when to give up._

"Sit down," his target invited him.

The Asset debated, but conceded the point. He might as well. He would be punished no matter what he did, at this point. He'd completely failed his mission.

"Bucky," his target said again, "if I'd known you survived. If I'd had any idea you might have... I'd have come for you."

_To the end of the line._


End file.
